Robespierre au cinéma

Until 1979 Robespierre was the character of the French Revolution who had been the most often depicted on-screen and on-stage, with 10 French films devoted to him, 6 British, 6 American, 4 Italian, 2 German and 2 Russian. Most of them revel in the morbid depiction of Robespierre, closely associating him with the Terror and with the guillotine: the deathly machine where he sent people to meet their end before eventually facing it himself. Cinema seems to be narrowly limited to the dark side of Robespierre-the-tyrant, in direct continuity with the Thermidorian tradition, while theatrical stages seem more open to display Robespierre’s poetical dimension.